Ask Richie Houston how many of his wrestlers he thinks will advance out of this weekend’s region tournament and the sixth-year Madison County wrestling coach is not afraid to think big.

“We hope everybody,” Houston said.

Whether or not that wish comes true, every Madison County wrestler has a chance to extend his season this weekend by finishing in the top four of his weight class in the Friday-Saturday 8-AAAA tournament at Apalachee.

Those top four move on to the state sectionals. Action starts at 5 p.m. Friday and resumes at 9 a.m. Saturday.

“They would have to screw it up to not get out (of region),” Houston said.

Ruiz leads that group with a 33-2 record. Meanwhile, Cody Phillips has a 26-2 mark. His twin brother, Colton Phillips, is the team’s wins leader at 37-7.

The other top records belong to Nash (26-5), Bates (30-10) and Adams (14-4).

The region tournament will signal a welcomed return to the mat for Adams, the defending region champion in the 215-lb. class. The senior, who is gunning for his second-straight trip to sectionals, hasn’t wrestled since Jan. 5 due to injury.

As for the rest of the lineup, the Red Raiders boast a few other wrestlers who are over the .500 mark for the season: Kyle Gordon (23-18) at 189-lb., Matt Dove (24-17) at heavyweight and Steven Resby (20-17) at 160-lb.

“I think everybody else is pretty much is just going to have to wrestle their best match and place somewhere in that third or fourth spot to (advance),” Houston said.

Though Houston is confident heading into region, he is a little worried that his squad might be rusty.

Due to two cancellations, Madison County hasn’t wrestled since the Jan. 22-23 East Metro tournament when it tied for sixth out of 22 teams.

“That’s the only thing that I’ve been worried about is having two weeks off,” Houston said.

Houston made sure that conditioning won’t be a problem entering this weekend. Following a good practice last week, the coach put his guys through a rigorous regimen Monday.

“We pretty much killed them yesterday (Monday),” Houston said.

That included jogging for 30 minutes and then running six hills, along with “buddy carries” up those hills.

“It was pretty grueling yesterday (Monday),” Houston said.

The coach said the preparation is in place. Now, it’s time to see how far that will take them.

“We told our guys yesterday, ‘you’re not going to learn anything new this week,’” Houston said. “Whatever has got you this far and what you’ve relied on is what you’ve got. We’ve just got to make it crisp.”

Notes: The 8-AAAA tournament was switched to Apalachee this year after originally being scheduled for Cedar Shoals. Region schools wishing to host the tournament must bid for the event each year. Madison County hasn’t tried to bid for the event due to space constraints. The school wouldn’t be able to put down four mats on the gym floor and pull out both sets of stands at the MCHS gym at the same time.

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